I previously wrote [rather briefly] about letting go, translating, and transforming as three major roles of futurists. …
Jobbing or Doing?
A frequently asked question I get as an educator is “can I get a job as a futurist? I tackled this important and …
MISC: Prepping for the Next Economy(s)
I am pleased with the Houston Foresight program's collaboration with the elegant and informative MISC: A …
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Public sector interest in foresight taking off?
I’m in Dubai for a week doing scenarios with a government agency. One can’t help but be impressed by the tremendous …
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Next Economy Additions: Commons, Creative Molecular, and Em/Singularity
A couple of years, I started collecting and posting concepts or names for the next economy as part of my scanning (which …
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Using scenarios
I had the opportunity to share some thoughts on my experience using scenarios for the 7th Session of the International …
Intuition in Futures Work
We come to the week in Alternative Perspectives class where we see how far one’s embrace of alternative extends. We call …
A Foresight Competency Model
It was great to be able to brief the new Foresight Competency Model at the recent APF Global Futures Festival. To listen …
Foresight in the university world: size matters
Last week we tackled the pressure to bring in research dollars. This week we confront a classic chicken-and-egg problem …
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Foresight in the university world: Research
I'm thinking of a series of unofficial random musings about the state of foresight in the university world, as I begin …
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Future of income inequality via Picketty
Every now and then, perhaps more than I care to admit, I defer reading a book that attains some degree of popular …
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2016 APF Most Significant Futures Works Winners
One of my favorite things to do each year is to coordinate the APF’s Most Significant Futures Works program. Each year, …
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Your ideal keynote….
…to new audiences to get them interested in using futurists and foresight If we think about the market for futurists, …
News Flash: Futurists Are Dying Again
Almost on cue, after a few days of saying nice things about Alvin Toffler, the NY Times pointed out the demise of …
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Graphic of Houston Foresight Scanning Process
Our design expert on the Houston Foresight team, student Maria Romero, is at it again. After doing a beautiful job with …
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Help Disseminate Foresight Market Survey
Most of you know that the market for foresight is still pretty murky. As part of my work on the APF …
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Foresight Classics: Earth Might Be Fair
My journey into classic views of the future recently turned up an expected gem – unexpected in the sense of my not being …
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Historians & Futurists: More Alike than Not
A few weeks ago, we explored a few thoughts around the history of the foresight field. APF colleague Ruben Nelson …
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Foresight Value Proposition
We were discussing the value proposition last week, as we often do on the APF listserv. I thought we’d discuss a couple …
Next Economy Additions: Zero marginal cost, metaspace, conscious, and Blockchain
A couple of years, I started collecting and posting concepts or names for the next economy as part of my scanning (which …
Observations from tracking mentions of futurists in media
The Houston Foresight program initiated a project to track, collect and analyze mentions of futurists in the media back …
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Roots of foresight: When (and how) do you say it started?
We had a great discussion last week at APF on the origins of the foresight field. I was not sure whether to even start …
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Personal Futures Planning
Our ProSeminar class had a visit last week from a dozen Norwegian students studying under futurist Derek Woodate. We did …
Can I get a job as a futurist?
Yes, but it ain't easy! It’s the number one question on the mind of prospective foresight students. Futurists are …
Transformative scenario planning
I finally got to Transformative Scenario Planning by Adam Kahane. It’s one of those books that stayed too long in my …
Second edition of Thinking about the Future
An updated second edition of Thinking about the Future is now available on Amazon. The foreseeable depletion of the …
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Shifts in teaching the future
Teaching should not stand still of course, but it is part of an academic mission is to stay true to what is the core of …
Foresight Classics: The Next Three Futures
I’ve been meaning to revisit – or visit for the first time -- foresight classics. I started slowly with a two-part …
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Houston Foresight Fall Semester Reflections
It’s time to turn grades in (and deal with the last-minute pre-deadline submissions) at the Houston Foresight program. …
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Three Horizons of Work
I had the pleasure of participating on a panel exploring the future of work at the GAO for IFPTE Local 1921annual union …